Embodiments of the inventive subject matter generally relate to the field of network communications, and, more particularly, to transmission acknowledgements and retransmissions of unacknowledged transmissions.
A hybrid network (such as a Convergent Digital Home Network (CDHN), or P1905.1 network) is typically formed by interconnecting communication networks across different network technologies and communication media. The hybrid network may include hybrid communication devices (referred to herein as “hybrid devices”) that are often multi-interface and capable of operating across multiple networking technologies. A hybrid device (HD) may or may not have multiple interfaces but is considered a hybrid device if it is configured to use protocols associated with multi-interface devices in a hybrid network. For example, each hybrid device may support multiple interfaces using different network technologies (e.g., Ethernet, IEEE 802.11 WLAN, Coax, and powerline communications (PLC), etc.).
IEEE P1905.1 draft standard defines an abstraction layer (AL) for multiple home network technologies that provides a common interface to several popular network technologies: IEEE 1901 over power lines, IEEE 802.11 for wireless, Ethernet over twisted pair cable and MoCA 1.1 over coax. In this disclosure, a HD is considered P1905.1 compliant if it includes the IEEE P1905.1 abstraction layer and associated protocols. The abstraction layer typically has a unique medium access control (MAC) address that is in addition to the interface layer (IL) MAC addresses associated with each interface of the HD. The P1905.1 protocol defines messages, such as the Topology Discovery Message, Topology Query/Response messages, or other messages communicated between hybrid devices to share information about the topology of the hybrid network.
In a hybrid network with multiple hybrid devices, there may exist a plurality of different paths from a source hybrid device to a destination hybrid device. A first device may send a packet stream to a second device via the hybrid network. There is a potential for out-of-order packet delivery at a destination device due to packets transmitted via a different paths or due to load balancing among multiple paths. Reliable delivery of packets may be desirable for a packet stream. A first application associated with a packet stream may have different delay tolerance than a second application.